- Aug 18, 2012
- 20,920
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“I wanted to address my senators, Cruz and Cornyn.. I would like for them to know that what happened to me is a direct result of the policies they support. I nearly died on their watch and I may have been robbed of the opportunity to have children in the future”
Testimony of a Texas woman, Amanda Zurawski, before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
"About eight months ago, I was thrilled to be cruising through the second trimester of my first pregnancy. I was carrying our daughter, Willow, who had finally, blissfully been conceived after 18 months of grueling fertility treatment. My husband and I were beyond thrilled. Then, on a sunny August day, after I had just finished the invite list for the baby shower my sister was planning for me, everything changed. Some unexpected and curious symptoms arrived and I contacted my obstetrician to be safe, and was surprised when I was told to come in as soon as possible. After a brief examination, my husband and I received the harrowing news that I had dilated prematurely due to a condition known as cervical insufficiency. Soon after, my membranes ruptured, and we were told by multiple doctors that the loss of our daughter was inevitable. It was clear that this was not a question of if we would lose our baby; it was a question of when. I asked what could be done to ensure the respectful passing of our baby, and what could protect me from a deadly infection now that my body was unprotected and vulnerable.
My healthcare team was anguished as they explained there was nothing they could do because of Texas’s anti-abortion laws, the latest of which had taken effect two days after my water broke. It meant that even though we would, with complete certainty, lose Willow, my doctor’s didn’t feel safe enough to intervene as long as her heart was beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk and permit the standard healthcare I needed at that point—an abortion.
Read the rest of her harrowing account here:
Testimony of a Texas woman, Amanda Zurawski, before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
"About eight months ago, I was thrilled to be cruising through the second trimester of my first pregnancy. I was carrying our daughter, Willow, who had finally, blissfully been conceived after 18 months of grueling fertility treatment. My husband and I were beyond thrilled. Then, on a sunny August day, after I had just finished the invite list for the baby shower my sister was planning for me, everything changed. Some unexpected and curious symptoms arrived and I contacted my obstetrician to be safe, and was surprised when I was told to come in as soon as possible. After a brief examination, my husband and I received the harrowing news that I had dilated prematurely due to a condition known as cervical insufficiency. Soon after, my membranes ruptured, and we were told by multiple doctors that the loss of our daughter was inevitable. It was clear that this was not a question of if we would lose our baby; it was a question of when. I asked what could be done to ensure the respectful passing of our baby, and what could protect me from a deadly infection now that my body was unprotected and vulnerable.
My healthcare team was anguished as they explained there was nothing they could do because of Texas’s anti-abortion laws, the latest of which had taken effect two days after my water broke. It meant that even though we would, with complete certainty, lose Willow, my doctor’s didn’t feel safe enough to intervene as long as her heart was beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk and permit the standard healthcare I needed at that point—an abortion.
Read the rest of her harrowing account here:
